Mrs Rushdie does New York

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There are at least as many celebrities as frocks in the
Big Apple this week, including a canny goddess with all the right
attributes and connections, writes Guy Trebay.

To be Padma Lakshmi, aka Mrs Salman Rushdie, right now is
undeniably "very heaven". This former model, cooking show host and
celebrity spouse has seemed to appear at all places and all times
during fashion week, like an avatar of the Hindu goddess whose name
she bears.

In the superpopulated Hindu pantheon, Lakshmi is the domestic
deity representing wealth and the embodiment of beauty, grace and
charm. One of the cool things about the goddess Lakshmi is her
unabashed relationship with prosperity. In the current fashion
pantheon, Lakshmi similarly stands for a love of money and
commodity. A burgeoning brand married to a global brand, she has no
problem making public an inventory of brands she chooses to wear to
fashion shows. In other words she knows how the business works.

"He was adamant that I wear his clothes, and I said, 'Send me
your look book'," Lakshmi told Harper's Bazaar; she acted
as a special correspondent for the magazine this week.

A Dutch magazine had also asked to follow her around to all the
fashion shows this week, she said, for her view of the world from
the first row. "I told them I didn't have time for an interview, so
that was the best I could do," Lakshmi said, with a theatrical
sigh.

Unlike the many low-wattage personalities populating the front
rows - "Who is that?" someone inquired, referring to a beauty
posing for snaps at Esteban Cortazar's show on Sunday. "I have no
idea," came the reply. "We've heard it's a total nobody from
Brazil." - Lakshmi gives good value in a quotation, knows her best
angle, and dresses herself.

The last observation may seem odd to a fashion civilian. But in
a world ruled by stylists, celebrities who choose their own clothes
are like acrobats flying without nets.

"The coat is Gucci," Lakshmi said, seat-hopping before Luella
Bartley's show. The fitted white leather boots she had on were
"made for me by my friends at Costume National". The sequined
handkerchief-hem wrap dress was a vintage one from a Diane Von
Furstenberg collection.

Her day ring, set with a whirring wheel of white gold - kept
spinning by the movement of her hands - was by Angelo Meru, an
Italian jeweller. The enormous emerald-cut flasher on her ring
finger was Rushdie's wedding gift. The dangling seed pearl earrings
came from Tara Famiglietti, a young New York jeweller, and the cool
white of the tiny gems set off her dark mane, which early in the
week had been giving her problems, she explained, since the recipes
she was testing for a new cookbook left her hair smelling like pork
tenderloin.

It may be true that Lakshmi has no obvious allergies to the idea
of special treatment. Still, she is closer to the breed of
celebrity who will actually crack open a wallet every once in a
while, than to the more prevalent type one tends to encounter now.
These people, whom one producer called "brand pimps", are a very
special element of the fashion cycle. Freeloading is a way of life
for them, a calling; one could almost call it a creed.

A semi-celebrated hustler Lakshmi may be. But at least she has
celebrity bona fides. "Now we're getting all these reality show
people calling with all kinds of outrageous demands, and I'm not
talking about the winners," said Mauricio Padilha, a partner in the
fashion production company MAO. "I'm like, 'You were on a desert
island for six weeks eating rats, you got voted off, and now you
want a front-row seat?' "Such is fashion now, it seems.